• tugash@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    How’s the genocide of a whole continent “average history”? The magnitude of destruction in the Americas is not common and this downplay of a continent-wide genocide is annoying.

      • ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        because there are other examples

        …ok? I guess I don’t get why there needs to be any comparison, since it inevitably ends up sounding like “oh, well this one wasn’t as bad as that one. Happens all the time.”

      • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlM
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        1 year ago

        Other examples existing does not change that it is historically unprecedented and far from the norm. And its just a really strange and pointless thing to point.

        Person A: “my dad died in a car bomb” Person B: “ehh, average family death” A: “uhh what?” B: "well, there are other examples of people dying in car bombs, dude! "

          • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlM
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            1 year ago

            You’re correcting me saying that expelling native populations time and time again from every land they go to, then genociding their entire population to the point of near extinction, using the most horrific methods and over centuries, is more akin to dying of old age than dying by a bomb?

            Please read that again and confirm to me that’s what you’re saying, because it sounds absolutely ridiculous. This scale and this horror are not common historical occurrence.

              • Cyclohexane@lemmy.mlM
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                1 year ago

                I am sorry to restate this again, but the expulsion, genocide on the scale (both in size and horror) is historically unprecedented. You’re going to have to prove this to me if you think it’s a common occurrence instead of continuing to repeat it.

                And for the record, no one here is talking about small scale expulsion. I am talking about expulsion AND genocide on the same scale and horror committed here. Show me that it is a common occurrence and I will concede.

      • PyroNeurosis@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Did they? I was under the impression they came in, did a conquer, and basically left with the conquered understanding that the horde’d be back for their tribute.

        • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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          1 year ago

          Yeah they obliterated smaller outside towns to scare the bigger cities into giving them shit. They killed a lot but I’m not sure it counts as genocide since the eradication of people wasn’t the point.

          • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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            1 year ago

            Tell that to the something like 50 million people they killed while doing so.

            You have to be deeply ignorant, or some kind of idiot, to give the Mongols a pass while condemning western Europeans.

            • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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              1 year ago

              I’m not giving anyone a “pass” to genocide, only attempting to be very clear about what the precise definition of it is.

              Everyone killing people for their stuff sucks, but humans were doing that shit forever.

              Not every generation was loading specific people into trains and camps just to gather them for removal from the genetic code.

          • DragonTypeWyvern
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            1 year ago

            Genocides are largely determined by the desire to exterminate a specific group.

            Every time the Mongols said “fuck these people in particular, kill the whole city” it was a genocide.

            They just didn’t do much in the way of the type we’re most familiar with, ethnic or religious “cleansing,” but many of the cities were effectively their own cultures if nothing else.

            • money_loo@1337lemmy.com
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              1 year ago

              No that’s just called war mongering.

              Genocide would require them finding out the culture and ethnicity of the people living in those cities, and then specifically targeting them everywhere they went JUST BECAUSE of their ethnicity and cultures.

              Mongols just massacred every living thing including your pets and cattle so they could build skull towers out of them to terrify the main city into paying tribute to their “power”.

              I’ve noticed this a lot in recent times where people seem to attempt to redefine what a genocide is, and I’d caution you to be careful throwing around the word so casually, lest you erode the meaning of it further.

    • TheDankHold@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Because you’re lumping in the unavoidable disease transfer of first contact with intentional conquest and violence. Take away that, which was going to happen whenever any Afro-Eurasian community first interacted with people from the americas, and you get a very comparable situation to many things throughout history.

      • tugash@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The genocide didn’t happen solely after the first contact, the massacre of natives lasted centuries. Many nations were wiped out in the XIX century.

        And a quote for you

        Proponents of the default position emphasize attrition by disease despite other causes equally deadly, if not more so. In doing so they refuse to accept that the colonization of America was genocidal by plan, not simply the tragic fate of populations lacking immunity to disease.

        Professor Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

      • Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        There’s strong evidence the disease was on purpos- Ah who am I fucking kidding, the colonizers flat out admitted it.